The administration is currently considering mobilizing National Guard forces in Washington, D.C., in response to President Trump’s initiative to suppress urban crime in the capital. As of early Monday, no formal deployment orders had been cleared by the President. However, it is anticipated that an imminent White House press conference will reveal plans to dispatch several hundred National Guardsmen from D.C. to buttress the city’s existing law enforcement. The particulars of this arrangement were not available at the beginning of the week.
Even though crime statistics in the capital trend towards a decline, the President has asserted the view that the state of affairs has gotten completely out of hand. He has even voiced threats of federal intervention. The National Guard forces, subject to a potential mobilization as reported earlier by Reuters, would likely not possess the power to make arrests under this initiative.
Their role, instead, would be to lend assistance to local law enforcement, possibly freeing officers to focus on their patrol responsibilities. The administration’s plan includes a temporary reassignment of 120 FBI agents to serve night patrol as part of its drive to rein in crime rates.
Most of these FBI agents would be transferred temporarily from their normal assignments at the FBI’s Washington field office. This considered mobilization follows a similar move this past summer where almost 5,000 National Guard soldiers were sent to Los Angeles, an order made in response to public unrest triggered by immigration enforcement.
Their mission was to aid in quelling the protests and provide protection to federal agents actively conducting the raids. At this time, nearly all of those guardsmen, save for approximately 250, have been recalled.
In his initial term in office, President Trump has already demonstrated willingness to mobilize National Guard forces and federal law enforcement to confront and dissipate peaceful protests. This was particularly evident during the Black Lives Matter protests which came on the heels of the police shooting of George Floyd in 2020.
The unique circumstance of the District of Columbia, which unlike a state does not have command over the National Guard, leaves much room for the use of this power by the president.
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